Shea Butter Sourcing Playbooks

The four playbooks

Each playbook is a long-form process, not a single how-to. They are ordered as a buyer journey: write the brief and choose a grade, qualify the organisation behind the sample, scale from that sample to a container, then run incoming quality control on every delivery. A founder launching a first shea SKU reads them in that order. A procurement manager who already holds a shortlist starts at qualification. A plant that already receives drums starts at incoming QC and only then loops back to re-qualify. None of the four replaces a Certificate of Analysis, a laboratory result or a conversation with a safety assessor. They exist so that conversation starts from a written specification rather than from a marketing adjective.

Download the checklists

Every checklist on the playbooks and the COA guide can be ticked in the browser and saved as a PDF. The combined file is the four one-page masters plus the 10-point COA list. Each playbook also has its own pack with every step checklist.

Which playbook to start with

Start from the stage you are actually in, not from the stage you wish you were in. A brand that has not written a specification will waste a supplier call. A buyer who has already approved a sample does not need another essay on unrefined versus refined; they need the commercial sequence. A plant receiving repeat drums does not need a first-order checklist; they need sampling intensity, retains and a trend chart. The table below is the suggested order. Each cell links to the playbook.

Guides, buying questions and tools

A playbook is the whole buying sequence. Open a buyer guide for one procedure — reading a certificate of analysis, storing drums, refining, or the Nigerian export document set. Uses and buying questions cover cosmetic uses, adulteration signs and supplier questions. Free tools do the arithmetic. By industry pages state what EMI offers a buyer type. Origin, grades and specifications sit in the complete guide to shea butter.

How to read the playbooks

Each playbook is free to read online, in full, with no email gate. Tick the checklists on the page, or download them as a PDF for a qualification file. Share a playbook by linking to its URL. Each page shows a last-reviewed date and a reading time.

If you already know the grade, the volume and the destination, you do not need another page. Request a quote or a current Certificate of Analysis and we will answer from the factory in Ibadan. If you are still choosing a grade, still writing a specification, or still deciding whether a remote audit is enough, start with the playbook that matches that stage and keep the contact form for when the file has numbers in it.